


the great marvel vs dc debate: as understood by hawkeye

by livingtheobsessedlife



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artist AU, Artist Clint Barton, Clint is oblivious, M/M, also, phil coulson is a huge nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 17:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13885950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingtheobsessedlife/pseuds/livingtheobsessedlife
Summary: Phil Coulson is a certified nerd who loves everything Captain America and works at the SHIELD headquarters downtown as a Level [REDACTED] [REDACTED]. He loves his Harry Potter-loving, future nerd of a niece so very much that he agreed to give her mom a break and bring her to comic con with him this year.Clint Barton is strictly Not A Nerd but it turns out there isn’t much of a market for fancy, handmade bows and arrows beyond comic conventions, and where there’s money Clint goes, so he finds himself at these things at least once a month and they’re usually pretty dreadful because he has exactly 0 idea what’s going on but hey that one guy dressed as captain America is really hot maybe nerds aren’t half bad.





	the great marvel vs dc debate: as understood by hawkeye

**Author's Note:**

> I went to comic con and came out of it really happy and also wanting to write a fic and this happened...
> 
> the title was at various points: hawkeye takes on the con (and nearly loses it), clint barton hates children's costumes, clint barton hates (most) comic cons, and clint barton needs to nerd the fuck up.

“Hey, you! Yeah, you- you Brown Guy! Get away from those!” Clint barked, tearing his eyes away from the handsome-looking soldier eyeing the custom coasters across the aisle just in time to see a kid dressed in some brown cloak fidget with one of Clint’s arrows, dropping it, “These are really expensive! Be careful!"

The Brown Guy just snickered and ran off, his whopping four foot tall body disappearing into the masses easily. 

“ _Dammit_ ,” Clint said, left to stare at the shards of an arrow in bits. The hot guy across the aisle moved to a different booth, farther away. 

“Did I just hear you call that kid dressed as a Jawa a Brown Guy?” Veronica, Clint’s booth neighbor, leaned in, practically snorting with laughter. She had bright purple hair and glasses the size of her face and made awesome prints (mostly with acrylic paint and digital applications, but she used almost every medium), lots of them, and created pins of characters and actors that sold like hot cakes (if hot cakes had pictures of hot guys in intimidating fighting stances printed onto them). 

“How am I supposed to know what he was?” 

“You don’t know what a Jawa is? They’re in the first Star Wars movie, on Tatooine. Ringing a bell?” Nothing. Literally just a blank stare from Clint, “They’re the guys in A New Hope that sell Artoo and Threepio to Luke and Uncle Owen.” Still nothing. Veronica sighed, exasperated, “Why are you here if you don’t even know what a Jawa is, Barton?”

“Oh, Veronica, Veronica, _Veronica_ , such a simpleton,” Clint said, scooping up the broken arrow pieces, “I do it for the money, that’s all. I would much rather be anywhere but here, but sadly this is where I find myself this weekend. I have no clue about any of this nerd stuff.”

“Well then, Barton,” Veronica said, giving Clint a rough clap on the shoulder and a wild smirk, “You’re in luck because a panel just started on the other side of the hall and it’s supposedly going to be a super popular one so business is about to thin out. Plus, Amy said she could guard my booth for awhile just in case. I can freely explain to you the intricacies of The Con. And Star Wars. You _definitely_ need a lesson on Star Wars.”

Clint looked up just in time to see the handsome soldier shopping for coasters move into the masses that were heading in the direction of Veronica’s Super Popular Panel. 

“Okay, I’ll listen. I don’t have anything better to do, I guess.”

“You better,” She said, taking a big sip of Mountain Dew and looking like she was about to start talking a mile a minute. 

“You gotta explain who the people in the red, white, and blue soldier costumes are, too.” He tried to sound as nonchalant as possible, he really did.

Veronica just smirked, like she knew all of his motivations, “Oh, don’t worry Archer Boy, I will, I will.”

////////

A flash of a red and black floppy hat (if _that's_ what you would call a hat) rammed into Clint’s booth just as a harried, high pitch voice yelled from somewhere deep in the crowd, “ _Just because I let you dress up as Harley Quinn does not mean you can act like her! Come back here, missy!_ ”

An overwrought BatMom of some sort appeared out of the crowds and reached for a handful of the back of the red-and-black checkered costume. But it was too late. An entire bow had ruptured, it’s string peeled right off the wood by the unruly hand of a child (Clint hadn’t even know that could happen to his bows, but children apparently found new ways to destroy things every day). 

“Oh. My. Goodness. I am so, so sorry, sir. I’ll pay for it, I promise,” The BatMom was already pulling out her wallet, “How much did it cost?”

Clint shyly told her the price of the bow and she practically dropped her wallet.

“That much? I-I can’t afford that, I’m so sorry. Could I possibly buy something a little less expensive? What can I buy for, um, $65?”

Almost nothing. That bow had cost $300. Clint was losing money left and right today. He really hated comic cons. 

“You could buy one of these arrows, m’am. I really appreciate this,” He smiled, trying not to show on his face that he was doing the math in his head of how many other arrows he’d have to sell to make up for the loss of this single bow and the Jawa's broken arrow. 

“Well, I’ll buy it.” The BatMom reassured, keeping a tight grip on the back of Harley Quinn’s costume (whoever Harley Quinn is, Clint had no idea). The little girl was already trying to inch toward Veronica’s booth, or the coaster one across the aisle. 

Clint started to make change and BatMom was getting antsy, practically hissed at her daughter to _sit still for once for once in her life._

“So what are you two dressed as?” He said, just to pass the time and make things less awkward.

“Are you kidding me? You don’t know who we are?” BatMom said, as if he were crazy.

“No?”

“Well this little runt is Harley Quinn, and she’s not usually this bad, I swear, she’s just excited. She loves it here. And I’m Batman, obviously.”

“Isn’t Batman a… man?”

“So what?”

“Alright, I respect that,” Clint said, trying to make his chuckle as non-threatening as possible, “So what are you, from Star Wars or something?”

Clint could hear Veronica trying not to laugh from her booth.

“No… we’re superheroes.” Clint could tell that BatMom was wondering if she was being pranked or something, her face twisted and she looked towards the ceiling as if she'd catch some sort of secret camera.

“Like Captain America?”

“Well, kinda, but they belong to different universes.”

“Different universes? What does that mean?”

Veronica appeared, out of nowhere with a huge smile, “Go on, Batman. I’ll explain to our archer friend why Marvel and DC fans will forever be at war.”

BatMom smiled, “Well, good luck then. Again, I’m so sorry, sir. Have a good day!”

And she scurried off, just like that, with her daughter pulled tight to her side so she couldn’t run off again, leaving Clint alone with Veronica to get an earful on why Marvel and DC were _completely_ different.

/////

The next time a kid showed up, Clint held his breath. He couldn’t afford another lost arrow. But instead, the little girl with her cloak and her yellow and black scarf and her wand just looked up at him with her wide, innocent eyes and shyly smiled. 

“Can I help you?” Clint asked, hesitating. The sweetness could be a trap, the calm before the storm. 

But instead, the little wizard (or rather witch, as Clint is corrected later) smiled at him and said, “Your bows and arrows are really pretty.”

“Thank you,” Clint said, because she may be a kid but he worked really hard and all compliments were appreciated, no matter how small, “Do you like archery?”

“It’s pretty cool, I guess, like Katniss!”

“Yeah, sure, like Katniss.” That was usually what people thought of when he talked about archery nowadays, it used to be Robin Hood. Not anymore. Now it was just all Katniss, all the time. Clint missed the days of Robin Hood (and the occasional Annie Oakley, which didn't completely make sense, but it was still appreciated). 

“Katie, please don’t run away like that!” A voice appeared, out of nowhere, from the depths of the crowd, red, white, blue, and… hot. It was the Captain America from earlier, the one that Clint had been checking out as he checked out coasters. And apparently he had a daughter which meant there was probably a wife or significant other of some sort not far behind. Damn. But then, the cosplayer frowned and opened his mouth again, “Your mom would kill me if I lost you. Do you have any idea how easy it would be for my sister to kill me for losing you? With ease. She’d have no problem with it. None.”

Oh. So it wasn’t his kid, it was his niece. It appeared that there was still hope for Clint Barton and the Hot Cosplayer afterall. 

“I’m so sorry,” Fake Captain America said, turning to Clint and _oh_ , “She’s a curious one. I hope she didn’t bother you.”

This was his chance. Clint smiled as charmingly as he could, “Not at all. She was just explaining Katniss Everdeen to me.”

The stranger wrapped his arm around his niece, chuckling almost to himself, “She _does_ like Hunger games. I’m Phil by the way, and this is Katie.”

“It’s Nice to meet you, Phil. You too, Katie. I’m Clint. I own Hawkeye’s Collectables." He widened his smile, just a little, to somehow make himself seem amicable to the max, hoping Phil would get the hint, "Here’s my card.” Clint hoped that the fact that his cell number was written on the back of the card was hint enough to call him. He didn’t want to blatantly ask this stranger out in front of his niece. Now that’d just be rude, right? 

Phil smiled down at the card and Clint loved it, felt his stomach bloom as Phil spoke, “Thanks, Clint. So you make these all on your own?”

“Yeah, from start to finish at my studio.” Clint tried not to sound like he was boasting, but well, he was very proud of his craft.

Phil examined a nearby bow, “They’re amazing.”

Clint couldn’t help but smile, “Thank you so much. And y'know, I really like your costume.”

Phil smiled, so fucking wide it was _unreal_. Clint was gonna go for it. He really was. Just ask outfront, not wait for all that complicated dating subtext. The signals were there, right?. He just had to _go_ for it, “Listen, I couldn’t help but notice-,”

But then he stopped because a beautiful redhead dressed as one of those people from Star Trek appeared seemingly out of nowhere and wrapped her hand around Phil’s elbow in such a familiarly intimate way that it made Clint’s stomach do a nose dive.

“Phil! I was looking everywhere for you!”

“Oh, Nat! Look at these bows! Aren’t they amazing? Clint here made them himself,”

Nat really looked at them, leaned over Phil to do so, like she was judging them, ranking them in her head, and maybe Phil wasn’t single afterall, this woman was certainly beautiful enough to be Phil’s girlfriend or wife or whatever. Nat smiled and Clint felt himself burn, almost vicariously, “These are really cool,”

“Thanks... I guess.”

Nat turned back to Phil, “Come on, the cosplay contest is about to start. You can totally place again, maybe even win!”

Katie got excited, too, started tugging on Phil’s sleeve, “I wanna see you win, Uncle Phil! Come on! Come on!”

Phil rolled his eyes at the two girls and looked at Clint, “It was nice to meet you.”

“Good luck with your contest,” Clint replied and slumped against his table. There was once again no point to Comic Cons apparently. Not without the hopes of hot guys dressed as Captain America. 

////

The next day when Clint received a text from someone saying that they were Phil From The Con, he was ecstatic for approximately 0.2 seconds before he remembered that Phil was most likely completely and utterly Straight and Taken. Damn. 

So he did what any mature and reasonable adult would do. He ignored the messages. Dealing with his problems would obviously be too difficult. Obviously.

When Clint was laying on his couch watching Dog Cops and his phone rang, the caller idea reading the number that Phil had texted him with, Clint (very _maturely_ , by the way) threw his phone to the other side of the couch, conveniently underneath one of the ratty purple throw pillows so that the ringer was muffled, and pretended that he had no idea what that ringing sound was. 

Clint received three more texts before the end of the week when they just stopped coming altogether. 

Clint went back to his everyday life. He crafted some more bows, made replacement arrows, scheduled his next con, did whatever he could to take his mind off of the texts dinging from his phone. Thankfully, Clint received a particularly expensive request through his website that allowed him to take his attention away from Hot and Straight Phil and onto working on the order. 

He liked to personally deliver the more expensive orders himself. It was sort a place of pride for him. So as he finished up the customized product, Monday came around and he packaged up his work and set out for the address on the email. It was nearby anyway, only a 15 minute drive. Once at the correct address, Clint maneuvered the package to the door and waited patiently for the customer after hearing a muffled, “ _I’m coming! Hold on!_ ” From within the condo. 

It was a medium-sized, modest, uber-modern condo that looked barely lived in, like the owner had somewhere better to be all the time. It was entirely different from Clint’s apartment, that looked like a tornado had hit it no matter what the time of day it may be. The door opened just as Clint began contemplating how many items he left out just on the path from his front door to the couch and how long it would probably take to tidy that area up (too damn long). 

Clint gasped, “ _Phil_?”

And sure enough, Phil stood there, smiling like he was the smoothest motherfucker in the entire world and well, granted, Clint had _not_ seen that coming. But here Phil, the very person he had been avoiding for over a week and a half, stood in his nice and tidy house with his probably-girlfriend probably somewhere in there, answering the door wearing a ratty old t-shirt with a faded Captain America logo printed across the front. 

“Hey, Clint. How’s it going?”

“You- um-,” Clint seemed to be having difficulty speaking, “You ordered something?”

“Yes, I believe I did,”

And before Clint could stop himself he found himself blurting, “Why?”

“Because I like you,” Phil said, so effortlessly, so easily, like it wasn’t something that Clint had been struggling to put into words for over a week and a half. 

“What about your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?”

“You know,” Clint said, gesturing, “Nat?”

Phil honest-to-god snorted aloud, “Natasha is not my girlfriend. And trust me, she never will be. We just work together and well, let’s just say that neither of us exactly swing that way.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Clint said dumbly, “So you-?”

“Yeah, Clint, Yeah.”

“Oh. Well, um, in that case, would you like to go out sometime?”

That trademark Phil Smile that Clint found himself loving returned again, “If you promise to respond to my texts, Clint, yeah, I’d love to.”

“Good,”

“Would you like to come in?”

Oh boy did Clint ever want to. But, nerd or no, Clint knew nothing real about him, and he had kinda liked the mystery, the waiting while it had lasted, “Not today, Phil,” Clint said, like some sort of half-promise, “Not today.”

Clint left, inadvertently forgetting all about the bow that he had made for Phil, leaving the wooden masterpiece on Phil’s doorstep, like part of his heart or his soul or something, left right outside of Phil's home to face the weather and all its irony. Clint only remembered it after he had already started the car, considered it a gift to Phil, and drove off. 

At the end of the month, when Clint was looking over his bills (Phil made him do things like that, it was cute how heated he got about Clint doing Adult Things because they were Important), he found a mysterious entry of money without identification, equal to the price of the bow. 

Almost like somebody had hacked his accounts and imputed just enough money to repay him for the bow. Weird. The name said something like Fury, but Clint didn't know a Fury. He'd certainly remember a name like that. Oh well.


End file.
